October 14, 1964

Nikita Khrushchev

Khrushchev is forced from the Soviet leadership

The official story was retirement for age and ill health. A U.S. Embassy report noted he had looked perfectly healthy two days earlier.

A resignation signed on 14 October

Presidium colleagues had demanded Khrushchev's resignation on 13 October 1964, moving against him while he was on vacation. He signed a resignation statement when the leadership meeting resumed the next day.

Their stated complaints included one-man rule, disregard for collective leadership, repeated administrative reorganizations, and agricultural and economic problems. Historians differ over how much weight to give particular policies against personal rivalries.

He was 70, and had been First Secretary since 7 September 1953 — about eleven years, not twelve.

A plenum with no debate

A specially convened Central Committee plenum accepted Khrushchev's removal as First Secretary and Presidium member and elected Leonid Brezhnev in his place. Mikhail Suslov delivered the report criticizing Khrushchev's leadership.

The archival version of the plenum record shows Brezhnev directing that there be no open debate, and Nikolai Podgorny nominating him before the committee approved.

There was no genuine contest over the succession; the vote was tightly managed.

Two offices, two days, one portrait

The state half of the transition waited until 15 October, when decrees removed Khrushchev as chairman of the Council of Ministers and appointed Alexei Kosygin. Party and government were now held by different men.

TASS announced the change late on the 15th, and Pravda printed it on the 16th; Soviet citizens learned nothing on the 14th.

Shortly before midnight on the 15th, the large Khrushchev portrait on Moscow's Hotel Moskva was taken down, while decorations honouring the latest Soviet cosmonauts were left in place.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 6 sources not yet audited

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What the sources leave uncertain

This was a multi-stage event. The Presidium confrontation ran across 13–14 October, the Central Committee removed Khrushchev as party leader on 14 October, and the state decrees appointing Kosygin were dated 15 October.
The listed title's initial “15 –” appears to be a damaged rendering of an intended 14–15 October date range.
The official explanation—voluntary retirement because of age and health—conflicted with the organized removal documented in internal records.